The Daily Mail market reporter takes stock of the year's winners and losers

It started with a bang and ended with a painful whimper. To say that investors had a roller-coaster ride in 2000 might well be the understatement of the millennium.

It was an extraordinary year. The mad rush into hi-tech and telecoms stocks began in November 1999 and stampeded away until March 2000 on the growing belief that the internet would prove an immense source of value to portfoilo investors.

The dream did not last long. It suddenly dawned on people that, in many cases, it would take an awful long time for web-based companies to make profits. Some might never earn a bean.

But perhaps the biggest financial story of the year was the third generation mobile phone auction across Europe. In a few fell swoops European governments helped themselves, quite legitimately, to euro100bn (£63bn). At the same time, major European telecom companies were left short of working capital with as debts piled up as high as Everest.

Cash from investors who had made huge early profits from the dotcom and IT boom found its way into the re-emerging biotech sector. That was also given a new lease of life after Celera, the US gene sequencing company, revealed it had completed mapping the human genome.

Biotechs were among the year's best performers. Top of the tree was Cambridge Antibody with a gravity-defying gain of more than 550%. It got a big lift when the European Patent Office upheld, without amendment, a key patent that had been challenged by major European rivals.

Redbus Interhouse, the former Horace Small Apparel textiles company, took second spot with a leap of 486%. Redbus builds and runs hi-tech sheds of power supplies, backup generators and refrigeration units.

Sportech, a sports-related gaming company formed when entrepreneur Trevor Hemmings bought Littlewoods Pools for £162m via a reverse takeover of bombed-out Rodime, climbed an impressive 437%. Sportech intends to seek a younger audience for its pools and betting business through magazines, the internet and interactive TV.

International Biotechnology Trust jumped 199%. It intends to buy back half its shares as part of the restructuring forced by dissident shareholders earlier in the year.

Biotech group Oxford Glycosciences also leapt 199%. Late in the year the company was given a ringing endorsement from £200bn US drugs giant Pfizer, which will pay fees and milestone payments to continue their two-year-old joint research programme into Alzheimer's disease.

Alizyme zoomed 173%. During the year it completed Phase 1 clinical trials of its anti-obesity drug ATL-962.

Orbis, the market leader in guarding empty buildings, scored a gain of 146%. The market is excited about its Cybertrak, the first mobile panic button device that combines a mobile phone with global positioning technology.

Vernalis, the biotech company formerly known as Vanguard Medica, jumped 140% amid rumours that Chris Evans, the biotech entrepreneur, could launch a bid.

Dotcom stocks were among the dogs of the year. QXL Ricardo, the online auctioneer run by former Financial Times journalist Tim Jackson, slumped 98%. News of widening second-quarter losses was the last straw for many who baled out leaving it trading as a penny stock for widows and orphans. Its peak was 744p.

Niche Internet broker Durlacher, once the champagne of bubble stocks, collapsed 88%. It hit a market value of £2.1bn in March on euphoric hopes that its 30-plus dotcom ventures would be floated at vast profits before needing further funds. No chance, Durlacher had to warn in December of a substantial loss after having to write-down the value of its internet portfolio.

Online content and telecoms company 365 Corporation also fell 88%. But it gave its followers some hope in November with news of narrowing operating losses and soaring revenues in the second quarter.

Atlantic Telecom dropped 87%, forced in November to reassure investors it has enough cash to carry out its immediate ambitions.

Internet services provider Thus lost 85% as punters waited in vain for the rumoured bid to arrive. Infobank, the e-commerce software group, ended 84% off. The dotcom collapse, and its failure to find another suitor after holding abortive bid talks in late 1999, took its toll.

Magazine publisher Future Network lost 83%. It warned in October that accounting discrepancies would hit its French operation.

Freeserve, the daddy of all the dotcoms and the UK's biggest internet service provider, lost 82% on the year.

The Footsie closed the year 9% down at 6222.5, only the third time the index has closed lower since it was launched in 1984.

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The Daily Mail market reporter takes stock of the year's winners and losers